


Denial is the only answer

by Miss_Phoenix



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Female Lance (Voltron), Flirting, Genderbending, Keith (Voltron) in Denial, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lana McClain, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), keith dosn't know he is flirting, keith flirting, love bug au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2020-11-27 15:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20951021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Phoenix/pseuds/Miss_Phoenix
Summary: After an accidental crash in the hallway Keith finds an effictive way to shut Lana up...OrKeith is unconscious flirting with Lana and Lana is a flustered mess.OrThat Lovebug Au I didn't think I could write.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first ever official fanfiction. I am not from an english speaking country, so if there are any misspellings or grammer mistakes it would really hep if you would notify me about it in the comments.
> 
> But i hope you enjoy <3

The alarm were blaring through the almost empty castle. “All paladins to the hangers NOW!” Allura yelled over the speakers.

Lana ran as fast as she could while trying not to fall over her own feet in an attempt to run and put on her under suit.

She turned the hall corner and before she knew it she was firmed pressed to the ground by her so said “rival”.

Her mind was racing while it tried to say something. In her flustered attempt the only word leaving her mouth was a pained groan.

It seems like that was what tugged Keith out of his train of thoughts. And he tried to hurry away from Lana. Without luck. He ended up putting more of his weight on the silent girl beneath him.

Which alone was weird. Lana almost never shut up. It was as if she was at a loss for words.  
Lana took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “S-sorry”, she said voice almost shaking.

So this was what shut Lana up. A little body contact? But she was always hanging all over Hunk. But then again, Hunk was her best friend. Maybe it was because it was Keith.

When Keith thought back he had never actually been this close. Sure their faces had been pretty close when they were mid-argument. But except that Keith liked his personal space and Lana never tried to cross that line.

But maybe Keith could use this in his advantage…

***

Luckily Lana and Keith got untangled from each other fairly fast and together they rushed towards the hangers.

“Happy you finally decided to show up number 3 and 4”, Coran announced when both teenagers tumbled into room.

Shiro looked rather disappointed but Keith didn’t take it to the heart. After all he had grown up with Shiro’s disappointed dad look and he had not done anything to avoid these situations.

Fast forward the paladins got the information about what had happened and sprinted towards their lions. They arrived 20 doboshes later on an unknown planet. If you ignored the colors it looked like earth. It had beaches, mountains and flower filled fields.

Carefully they landed their lions on the fringe of what looked like a city. Slowly but steady they moved from their lions towards the city. Coran had said something about these aliens being pretty civilized inhabitants, but no matter what he could have said it would prepare them for this sight.

In front of them were an almost identical copy of earth. There were shops, cars and kids running around chasing a poor kitten.

Lana felt her head started spinning, her vision blurring. Before she knew what happened her vision went black.

***

Lana woke up bathed in sweat panting as if she had just run a marathon. She tried to sit up but a hand kept her pressed firmed to the mattress. She had spots in her vision but was determinate to get up. Or at least just sit up.

She started to struggle more in her dazed state but stopped immediately when she heard a laughter. And that was when it hit her: this is NOT Hunk. Judging by the laugh it wasn’t Shiro or Coran either an  
definitely not Allura ore Pidge. That left only one person on the team: Keith.

Her face started heating up. What was he doing here?!

“Whhhssss Hunnn?” She asked. Keith laughed again.

“I have no Idea what that meant but I guess you are wondering where Hunk are. Am I right?” He said sounding annoyingly caring. Lana tried to nod, but that was a terrible mistake. Her surroundings started immediately to spin.

“Mmwhhtt happnnn?” she asked trying to divert her own thoughts from the spinning room. Keith chuckled.

“Answer to your first question: Hunk is helping Pidge with some security tech, the reason the planet called for Voltron. Allura, Coran and Shiro are talking to the emperor and empress. So I was the only one without a task and after you passed out and no one else could watch over you I volunteered”, Keith informed.

Lana smiled her usually cocky smile while slowly opening her eyes. “Couldn't keep away from me?” She teased, voice low.

Any other day Keith´s face would have broken in flames. But not today. Slowly he leaned over her until his mouth was only a few inches from her ear and whispered:

“Why would I want to stay away from you?"

Her eyes wide and her breath cough in her throat she tried to stutter an answer out but was stopped when the heart monitor she apparently was wearing started blaring.

Keith retreated to the wall on Lana´s left side, smiling wicked while nurses rushed into the room.

_Asshole._


	2. It can't get worse than this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunk is worried, Coran is excited, Keiths timing is on point and Lana feel like the world is against her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry almost christmas. Thanks for the patience I am officialy going to continue this fanfic.
> 
> Hope you like it <3

“Lana, are you okay!” Hunk almost yelled while he hurried over with panicked steps. 

It has been around half a day since the Keith accident. Lana still didn’t get why he had acted like he did, but she was not letting him of the hook. 

She would get her revenge. But it could wait. Now her only worries was how in the world she would get Hunk to _ calm down _.

“I’m fine Hunk, just a bit tired”, she answered while swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. 

“Yeah Hunk, she is doing a lot better, and she has gotten something to eat, as an answer to your next question”, Keith said with a grin plastered on his stupid face. 

_ What an asshole, I could have answered that by myself. _

“Okay, great, nice…” Hunk answered but it was clear that he was deep in his own thoughts. 

An awkward silence fell over the room. 

“Have you spoken to a doctor yet?” Hunk asked and almost as on command, the alien doctor walked through the door followed by Allura and Coran. 

The room was pretty crowded now. It had been fine with just her and Keith, but now the little hospital room was filled almost to the brim. It wasn’t made for six people and a bed plus all of the hospital devices. 

It made Lana feel a little claustrophobic, and her breathing started to come faster and faster. Her vision started darkening at the edges. 

Before she could feel the dizziness a hand was on her shoulder holding a firm grip. Keeping her grounded. 

“Are you okay?” Keith asked, voice low. 

“Yeah…” she answered her voice was weak and didn’t sound very convincing. 

As fast as the hand was come it disappeared again. She sighed to herself eyes fixed on her hands laying in her lap. Around her she heard voices and orders being delivered, but didn’t understand exactly what was happening. She could see, in the edge of her vision, people leaving the room.

When she looked up again the room was almost completely empty. The only ones left was Keith, Coran, the doctor and herself. 

“Okay Lana, the doctor says that they didn’t find anything life threatening, but he would recommend that you were a bit more careful the next couple of days”, Coran informed.

Lana was so grateful that he translated the doctor, because if he didn’t she would probably not understand anything. 

“Also he think that it would be a good idea to always have one from the team by your side, in case it could happen again”, Coran he added. 

_ Great, _ Lana thought. _ Just when she thought, she was of the hook she was forced to get a babysitter! How reckless did they think she was! _

She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. She was not just going to sit still and let her freedom get ripped away from her. 

“Coran I really don’t need a babysitter. I can do just fine by myself”, she announced while standing up. She stood up in precisely 3 ticks before her legs gave up under her. 

If it hadn’t been for two lean (muscular, but she would never say it out loud) arms, she would have landed on her bottom. 

Sometimes she really hated his timing. 

“And you were saying?” He whispered while leaning against her chest. 

She didn’t know how to answer that and kept silence for the rest of the conversation. Apparently Coran thought that Keith would be perfect for the task of keeping an eye on her, because of the save a few doboshes earlier. 

But if Keith was going to babysit her she was _ not _going to make it easy for him.


	3. If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna cause drama first

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lana is pissed at the universe - what is its deal. And why is it trying to force her into another bonding moment. Well at least she can always deny it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After what? Four months? I'm back!  
I have finally reached the state of bored out of my mind.  
I haven't seen any of my friends in a month now, and my exams are cancelled. Life is great. Or something.   
But thanks for the patience. I will try to update more often now that I have nothing else to do :-D

At the end of the week the paladins were done negotiating, and had gained a new alliance. 

Sadly that meant that Lana’s babysitting just started getting more obvious. 

No matter where she went, Keith followed. It was really starting to get on her nerves. The only place she had just some sort of privacy, was when she went to the bathroom. 

But after going almost every 10th doboshes Keith started going there too. 

***

It went on like that for a week. Keith went with her to meetings, they sparred together and ate every meal together. If she had to be honest, it wasn’t terrible having Keith as some kind of bodyguard. But it was still robbing her freedom. 

And to add some bad things: Keith. Kept. Teasing. Her. 

It was driving her insane. 

The casual body contact. A hand around her waist, to show her how to turn her hips when attacking. The light touch when he would randomly push a strand of hair out of her eyes. 

If it wasn’t Keith, she would think he was flirting with her. But let’s be real: Keith can’t flirt. (At least not intentional)

But then again she was supposed to be the flirty one. That was her thing, her characteristic. He wasn’t allowed to have so much power over her. 

And she knew just how, she could show that. 

***

Keith sat on the couch reading something on the tablet, Allura had given them - probably some update from the blades. He had finally let Lana go to the bathroom alone. 

He had told her, he needed to check something real quick before heading to the training deck. And since there hadn’t been any accidentes, he trusted, that she could be on her own this one time.

And after a week without any privacy except the peace inside her own room, she was ecstatic. Not that she would ever tell that to Keith, so she just left with a dry “see ya”, trying her best to hide the smile threatening to show. Not that he would have noticed anyway. (Sometimes she envied his ability to focus his whole being on one task.)

And the touches were also toned down. Except when they were training. Because even if she wanted, it was impossible to avoid physical contact, while trying to take your opponent down, without a weapon. And because of Keith’s expertises in close combat, and the fact that Lana sucked at it, she was constantly stuck with exactly that. Keith and close combat. 

But back to the present. 

Her head hurt like hell. And she had no idea why. Normally she could pinpoint, if it was a lack of hydration or sitting in a bad position for hours. But not this time. And to top it: This was potentially her last week getting tailed by Keith.

Fan-FUCKING-tastic.

Coran had agreed to letting the whole body-guard-thing fall, if nothing happened within the next week. 

There were 2-and-a-half day left.

So you could say, that Lana was a little bit pissed. Okay maybe not only a little bit. She was big time pissed at the universe and its ridiculous timing.

Her vision started to blur. Well no hoping it was only her ponytail. 

The least thing she could do was making a scene - and hopefully a bonding moment she could forget just for the sake of annoying Keith. Because why not. 

So she hurried back to the common room, the best she could with a blurred vision and a killer headache.

When the door slid to the side, at her movement towards it, Keith turned his head.

“Took you long enough,” he said, a smile on his lips. Or that was until he got a look at her. She could only imagine, what she looked like.

“Are you-” 

“ I don’t feel so good,” she said, cutting him off mid sentence , her legs barely keeping her standing. 

In a blur of motions Keith was by her side. 

And Lana was a terrible person. If this was the end for her (which she really doubted), she was going to hell. 

“We are a good team,” she said with a wink. And as on que everything went black.

***

Keith was split. On one hand, he was worried about his fellow teammate. On the other hand, he was furious. 

_ She remembered the bonding moment.  _

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around what had happened.

He had been in his own little bubble, until he heard the familiar sound of a door sliding open. He had turned to see Lana standing on shaking legs, face pale and hips leaning against the doorway. 

He had hurried over to her, and the moment he got a hand on her back her legs gave up under her, and she collapsed on the floor, still partly conscious. And it was in that instance, she had said that stupid sentence, that Keith had burned into his memories.  _ We are a good team _ . She had remembered it. 

“What’s up with the sour look?”

Could someone  _ please _ kill him right now. He was really not in the mood to listen to anyone right now. And especially not Shiro. 

“What do you mean? This is just my normal facial expression.” He tried. 

“Nope, that is your I’m-beating-myself-up-over-something-Lana-said-expression.”

First of all: Fuck him. 

Second of all: He had no idea what, he was talking about.

“I don’t have such an expression.” He tried to deny. Apparently it was too pathetic to get an answer. Shiro just looked at him. 

“It’s nothing. I promise.” He just said, raising his hand, pressing his palm to his chest. Okay maybe it wasn’t  _ nothing  _ but Shiro didn’t have to know that. 

“You and I both know, that is a big load of bullshit, but I will let you get away with it this one time. But then you have to at least talk civilized to Lana when she wakes up again. No bonding moment,” Shiro raised a hand stopping Keith from defending his case, “and no bantering, anger outbursts or insults before she has at least gotten something to eat.” Keith just nodded, which seemed to satisfy his could-be older brother. 

“Now either you go to bed yourself or I’m dragging you.” Shiro said. Keith took the hint and stood up heading to his room. 

But not before taking a short trip to the kitchen, stealing a cookie-looking-thing or two. Hunk would probably be slightly annoyed, but with Lana in a healing pod, he would probably let it slide. If only just this once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there are any grammar mistakes, please notify me >w<


	4. The scent of leather is going to be the end of me (or him)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens, when our dear young paladins, discovers the annoying truth about why Lana keeps fainting? And how are they going to deal with it?  
Including aggressive flirting, embarrassment and teenage temper tantrums.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short note here, Keith is tallest in this fic (because being a girl sucks and you can’t compete with a guy, when i comes to height).  
Keith = 5ft 7.5 inches (around 172 cm)  
Lana = 5ft 5 inches (around 165 cm)

The hallway was empty except Coran, Pidge and Shiro, and their hushed voices.

“So what you are telling us, is that Lana was bit by some sort of lovebug?” Shiro asked, confusion showing in all features.

“And she needs to have constant physical contact with Keith, for who knows how long.” Pidge was smiling like the little tyrant she was. 

Coran had called them out, into the hallway, after he had run some tests on the unconscious girl. 

“Yes, exactly.” Coran said twisting his mustache in the process. He must be happy, knowing that after a ridiculously long explanation, they finally understood the situation.

“Just one question. Why Keith?” Shiro was still confused, “You said it had to be the person, the victim was closest to, right when it was bitten by the bug, which in this case was Hunk, who stood right beside her.” 

Pidge couldn’t keep her laughter in anymore. This was gold. They had a bet going about exactly this. And this was a great development in her case, but not so much for Allura.

The whole bet was about who would confess first. Allura had her faith in Keith, because he was a hot-head and tend to talk over himself in an argument. Of course she hadn’t said it like that, but it was what she had been thinking.

Hunk stood with the both of them, because he was a hopeless romantic, who thought they would figure it out about same time.

Pidge had thought this through, she hadn’t taken online courses about human attraction for nothing. And Pidge came to the conclusion 1) Keith was too dense to acknowledge his feeling immediately and 2) Lana was in denial and she would never admit that her little rivalry actually was a crush. 

They had tried to exclude Shiro from the bet, because him and Keith were practically brothers, but after the bonding moment, where he accidentally intruded a ship-meeting, he joined in as well. 

And he could compete with the devil for the throne in hell. He had mercilessly thrown the two teenagers into awkward positions during training and were almost always paired them up in one-on-one matches. 

And just like Pidge, he had his money on their dear blue paladin. 

Which is why Coran had called them out into the hallway. Because the whole castle - except Keith and Lana - knew about the bet, and as their leader - Shiro - and finder of the bet - Pidge - Coran though they should decide what the two teenagers in question should know.

“The _ feelings _ Shiro!” Coran announced. “The person they are closest to romantically.”

“Oh…”

_ Yeah, if the two idiots discovered this, their bet would be ruined. _

_ “ _So what are we telling them?” Pidge asked, already loving this situation on Keith and Lanas behalf.

“I was thinking: strongest feelings towards a person within a mile. And if they ask questions about type of feelings, we say it could be anything from hate to competition.” Pidge was not going to let her ship sink, and she was not going to lose because of a stupid insect. And this is exactly why she hated the nature.

“Sounds splendid. Shiro?” 

“It isn’t like we are harming them, so yeah, I’m in.” And with that final statement, they walked back into the room.

***

When she gained conscious again, everything hurt. Her head, her muscles, her whole being. It was as if every fiber in her body was trying to escape each other. 

She opened her eyes the moment the pod lost its hold of her body. She closed her eyes again, expecting the pain, as her body hit the ground. But, to her surprise, she didn’t hit the ground. Instead she fell into a person. The scent of leather and passion hit her nostrils, and she didn’t even need to open her eyes again to know who it was. And just as the threat of landing face first, into the ground, disappeared so did the pain from before.

“Is this a new habit of yours?”

_ Fuck him. He sucks. Life sucks. The UNIVERSE sucks. _

“Very funny, I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.” She said annoyed, leaning against him towards the kitchen. (But only because she had to. She didn’t enjoy a single second of being held so carefully by Keith.)

“Oh yeah, Coran said something about figuring out, why you keep fainting, and how to stop it.” That remark made her stop in her tracks - or as much as the arm around her waist, guiding her, would.

“Wait what?” She said turning her gaze away from the ground and up to Keith's face. Keith stopped walking, still supporting her, meeting her eyes.

“Yeah, I know, but he wouldn’t say more, until you woke up.” He answered, while starting to move again.

The rest of the short, but awkward, stroll towards the kitchen consisted of silence and a short summary of the last few hours.

The moment the door to the kitchen slid open, the scent of garlic and lasagna greeted them. She loved Hunk. Maybe it wasn’t lasagne, like she knew it from earth, but the taste was close enough.

_ Maybe she should collapse more often? _

“Good to see, that you are awake again, number 4,” Coran said in his usually overly excited voice, as they sat down on the only empty chairs in the room. “And I have a lovely piece of new information.”

The moment Coran had started talking, he had gained Lanas attention (not that she didn’t normally paid attention to his stories, she loved them, Coran was almost like an uncle to her). 

“We found a little bug from the last planet we visited. It is called celuiqui cache, and is mostly known as the love bug.”

“Wait ‘love bug’, what has that to do with me?” Lana asked, interrupting Coran.

“This is probably going to be allot to swallow, but to neutralize the venom, you need to be in almost constant physical contact with your antidote - in this case Keith.” Shiro said.

“Nope, no no no, not happening. I’d rather be dead, than stuck by Keith's side for god knows how long.” Lana said, arms crossed over her chest and head held high.

“Then I have some good news for you…”

“WHAT!” 

_ Okay, that was not what she had expected to hear. _

“Lana, hear me out. We can’t lose a paladin, just because you have some sort of rivalry going on with Keith. I know it isn’t the ideal situation, and we will have to take you out of the game until the venom is out of your system. But I have faith in you,” Shiro turned his gaze to a snickering Pidge, “ALL of you. You can continue explaining the venom, Coran.”

“Thank you Shiro, and as i was saying, the venom reacts to feelings and starts, over time, destroying the fibre in the body, if the victim is out of reach of its antidote. The pain you probably are feeling is a result of that process.

“At first it is barely there, but over time it excellerate and can become unbearable. But for now you can sleep alone. But later, constant physical contact is going to be the only solution for you to be able to have a partly normal life without unbearable pain.

“And saying that, Pidge and I made some upgrades to your suits, to make it easier for skin to skin contact.” 

At this point Lana was a blushing mess. Yeah, maybe she was usually pretty ongoing, but the thought of sharing a bed with Keith, (and the thought of Pidge making upgrades to the suits to make skin easily available) was enough to make her face heat up.

“But that also mean you can’t be on missions to unknown planets. And places where it is important you are completely covered in protection gear. And that occurred to you too, number 3, for-” And that was where Keith's anger limit were. He was fine when it was Lana, who had to be benched, but the second it occurred to him, hell was lose.

“I am _ not _ going to stay back on a mission, I could participate in.” Keith said annoyed, cutting Coran of mid-sentence.

“Keith…” Shiro tried.

“What?!”

“It is your responsibility as a paladin to set the team first-”

“And it is also my responsibility to save the universe!” Shiro sighed. This was not going to be an easy discussion (not that he was surprised).

“I know that, but as I already said, we can’t lose a paladin because of anyone's dislike to the situation. And this is the only solution where none of us end up dying.” Keith was not looking happy about being lectured, which helped lift Lanas mood just a bit. And with the improvement of the mood - or hers at least -, Lana had the energy to play with the fire, that was Keith's temper.

“Come on, Samurai, you can’t say you didn’t enjoy my company.” And as if that wasn’t enough, she had to pour a gallon gasoline over it too. You know, just for fun.

“And I’m sure, you have thought about sharing a bed with me, at least once.” She added with a wink and a grin. 

_ Hiding her embarrassment on someone else's behalf? Check! _

And that seemed to be just the thing that did it for the guy. He rose from his chair, with rage sizzling in his veins, face red with anger (or embarrassment?), and rushed out of the room.

Lana had expected to get scolded by Shiro, but to her surprise she only got a disappointed look, before he exited the room as well, probably to go searching for the younger paladin.

_ Maybe that was a bit over the line… but it wasn’t new for her to cross Keith's lines time and time again. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, another chapter within the same month?! This is a great example of my terrible time management. I wrote this during math and made a meme during german… The only thing that haven't changed during quarantine is my terrible sleep schedule and procrastination habits.
> 
> But again, if there are any grammar mistakes, please comment. Actually if you have anything to comment, please do that. I’m living for comments as compensation for actually physical human contact.
> 
> And take care and stay healthy <3


	5. I didn’t sign up for this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith gets advice on how to handle normal human interactions, and Lana discovers the early signs of a crush, but won’t accept them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My school opens up again on monday, but the classes are in the afternoon so that is probably going to give me extreme amounts of time to write the next chapter(s). And to read! I’m reading “Making faces” by Amy Harmon right now, and it’s killing me - I have never been so broken because of a book. Can totally recommend it!  
But enjoy this chapter <3 And I am, as usual, always ready to answer questions :-D

If you ignore Keith little outburst of anger, the day they discovered the bug, everything was fairly normal. Except the suits - which were way too revealing -, the constant pain and being forced to wear as little as possible during training. 

Normally Lana would just wear the undersuit or some tights and a T-shirt, and Keith would wear his normal clothing, excluding his jacket (‘cause he’s weird).

Now Lana was stucket with to revealing short-shorts and a T-shirt with a criss cross on the back. It was embarrassing, and she hated it. And to make matters worse, Keith was doing his stretches in his (also waaayyy too short) shorts and red tank top. 

How was that fair. How could he look so focused and attractive (bordering madly hot), with sweat dripping down his forehead and neck. She had spent enough time in space to accept Keith’s attractiveness. But Shiro was also attractive. 

Maybe it was an unknown side effect of the venom. Because her heart was acting up.

But it was pretty much just like the month, after the first time she fainted. She was almost completely off duty, and she was bored and alone with her thoughts. Which never was a good thing. 

That is probably, why she didn’t noticed Keith making his way towards her. It was only when she felt a person, lightly pressed to her right side. She tensed for a second before noticing who it was - due to the presence of the pain disappearing - and quickly tucking her chaotic thoughts away.

“Soooo… Any plans later today or am I free to go?” She asked, feeling the need to flee, to a quiet place, where she could sort through her thoughts. 

“I still need to check in on red in the hangers,” Keith said, stretching his shoulders, “but you are pretty much free to go…” His voice died down a little at the end, but not enough to be concerning or a que for him to say more.

“Great, well then I’m out of here. See ya later.” She said heading out off the training deck with a wave, silently making her way to the observatory. 

The room was empty, as always, only filled with the slight humming from the machines containing the map over the whole universe. 

Lana liked spending time here. Alone. Only with the dim light from the millions of galaxies. This was her ‘safe space’. Alone in the middle of an ocean of planets. The first time Coran showed her how to use the map, she had instantly went looking for her own planet - Earth. But she quickly discovered, that it didn’t help the crushing feeling of being alone and vulnerable. After some time she just stopped. Instead she started pointing out planets, they had visited, while being trapped in space. 

It was only recently she discovered, that the machine, could also show pictures and short video clips from the planets. And that is how she ended up looking at the sun, slowly setting, from a random Balmera. She was completely absorbed by the view and her thoughts, that she didn’t notice the tears running down her cheeks. 

Normally she wasn’t easy to tears, but everything was just too overwhelming. 

She missed her family. 

She missed the ocean.

She would even go as far as saying, she missed getting yelled at by Iverson.

And she missed knowing her place in the universe.

She felt as if she didn’t belong here. As if she was a heavy burden the rest of the team had to carry, just for the sake of appearance. Especially Keith. And the whole whatever-its-name-was bug didn’t help. At all.

She closed her eyes, lowering her back to the ground. 

When did her life come to this?

And the pain - oh god, the pain - was really not helping her.

And lying there, on the floor, tears rolling from her eyes, down the sides of her head before pooling at her ears, forcing her to annoyingly wiping them away, she wished Keith was here…

...Wait a minut..?

_ She wished Keith was here...! _

To say Lana was slow at discover her own feelings was an understatement. To say she was good at handling them would be an even bigger exaggeration. 

_ This can’t be true. She can’t have feelings for Keith. He was Keith! This must be the venom speaking. Or worse! Hormones!  _

_ Yes… that’s it… the venom and her own hormones are playing games with her.  _ She thought to herself smiling at her explanation.

“You have a pretty disturbing look on your face right now. Am I interrupting some sort of criminal master plan?”

Her whole body did a weird combination of tensing up and relaxing. Tensing up ‘cause she hadn’t heard him - how did he even find her? - and relaxing because  _ Keith was here! _

Her heart did the weird fluttering thing again.

Along with the pain subsiding, the crushing feeling of loneliness and her own confusing thoughts disappeared too.

“Oh great, my victime has arrived.” She just answered, tilting her head to meet his eyes, laughing when she spotted his hair.

“And I thought it couldn’t get worse than the mullet.”

*** 

Keith had just finished emptying Red for paperwork and old maps from earlier missions. If he had known, that being a protector of the universe, would mean this much paperwork and preparation before and after missions, he would probably not have spent months trying to find - what he at that time didn’t know was - the blue lion.

But then he wouldn’t be reunited with Shiro and never met Hunk, Pidge and Lana.

So maybe it wasn’t that bad after all.

“You can be really hard to find sometimes, you know.” 

Keith was not sure how to decode Shiro's tone. It didn’t sound like he was about to get scolded, but it wasn’t the same tone he used, when he just wanted to small talk. 

His concern, or rather confusion, must’ve shown, because Shiro quickly raised his hands, in some sort of surrender.

“Don’t look at me like that. This isn’t going to take that long. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

_ Oh, so it was one of those talks. _

It was pretty unknown of Shiro to just ‘wanting to see how you were doing’, so he knew there was something deeper the older wanted to talk about, but Keith couldn’t come to think of any hidden motives.

“I’m doing fine, or as fine as you can be, knowing that in the near future, you have to be in constant physical contact with Lana.” He said laughing awkward at his own attempt at a joke. Which didn’t seem to help lifting the mood, as he had hoped it would, if Shiro’s furrowed brows was anything to go from.

“Have you talked to Lana yet?” Shiro asked cautiously. And now that he thought about it, he hadn’t. Like  _ at all _ . They had talked about the missions, they couldn’t participate in, but never deeper than shallow tasks. So he kept silent.

“I take that as a no. Can you maybe tell me why?” Shiro’s voice sounded like he was talking to a scared kitten. 

“I don’t know why. She is just… just... you know…” He struggled finding the right words.

“Lana?”

“Yes! And what if I mess something up, and because of this stupid bug I can’t avoid her!” He was starting to panic. Just a little bit. Because that was how Keith handled his emotions - cramped them up inside, until someone asked him the right question, that let them overflow him.

“And you know I suck at talking to people, and Lana can’t stand me. Did you see her reaction at being stuck with me?!”

“Yes Keith, I was there. And just  _ breath _ .” With a shaky breath his nerves calmed down if just a bit. 

“Do you want some advice?”

“Always...” He kept taking deep breaths, thoughts calming down, while his blood transported the oxygen through his veins to his brain, clearing his head.

“Try listening to her, and just be, you know, nice…?”

“Why do you say it, as if I’m not always nice?”

With a sign and a shake of his head Shiro just said: “Because you aren’t”. Keith let out a betrayed gasp, acting as if he had never been this offended in his entire life.

“Just… Think about it”

“Fine, any suggestions to where I can find her?” The faster he could talk to her, the faster he could leave again. And hopefully, she wouldn’t hate him.

“Try asking Coran. He always knows where everyone are.” 

With a wave and a ‘later’ he headed towards the training deck’s surveillance room, in a hope to find Coran. 

Which he would later regret, looking at the worst haircut he had ever had. This is why Coran shouldn’t have access to fire, and Allura scissors. And the reason Lana is lying on the floor trying to catch her breath after her latest laughing fit...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry, there are coming a better explanation to what happened to Keith's hair.
> 
> Next chapter should be out, before the end of this month, if everything goes as planned <3


	6. Tears, haircuts and to many complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can a haircut make someone look so many times hotter??! Featuring a panicking Lana and a confused - and surprisingly caring - Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lana is so relatable sometimes...
> 
> Sorry for the wait, life was in the way... again... but my summer vacation starts on friday so that should give me a break from school, graduation and everything else your last year at a school include.  
Enjoy <3

Keith couldn’t remember last time he got a real haircut. After his father died, he couldn't see why it was necessary. So he just cut it when his bangs became too long and fell into his eyes. And after years of having the comfort of his so called mullet taken away, he felt exposed.

It all started when he finally found Coran in the training deck’s surveillance room. From where Keith stood, in the doorway, he couldn’t exactly see what the man was doing. So when he accidentally startled Coran, causing him to turn in surprise, unfortunately with a little flamethrower pointed directly at Keith, who in an attempt at saving his face, turned his head to the right. Which lead to the much worse situation. His hair was now  _ on fire _ . Luckily they put out the fire before any major damage could be done, as Coran said, but Keith was certain that the damage done do his hair was major.

And to make matters worse, Coran insisted on getting Allura to take a look at the disaster called his hair. 

Allura was good at styling her own hair multiple ways: braids, twists, pigtails and so on. But she had never cut anyones hair before. But being a warrior and princess the whole cutting someone's hair shouldn’t be that hard. Right?

And it wasn’t hard at all. She didn’t need to put any strength in it to cut tuft after tuft of the boy’s head. And if she had to say it herself, it wasn’t terrible. Just…  _ different _ .

His mullet was long gone and an undercut sat in its place. The fire did not get to the top of his head, so that part of his hair was still untouched - after a lot of begging for Allura to spare it. 

So dreading the conversation with Lana even more now, he walked towards the observatory - he had gotten her location as a distraction while Allura cut his hair. 

It had surprised him that she was at the observatory. She didn’t seem like the type of person who would spent hours pointing out planets and stars. But then again, who would have thought that a pack of teenagers would be the universe’ last hope? 

So there he stood, surprisingly nervous, in front of the doors to the observatory. While combing a hand through his hair to calm himself, he pressed the button to open the door. He was meet with silence, which was atypical with Lana being in the room. 

The light was dimmed and every inch of the room was filled with holograms of planets, galaxies and solar systems. It was beautiful. He took a couple of steps into the room, eyes finally landing on Lana’s sitting figure. She was watching what looked like a sunset with her face was twisted in an indescribable expression. But if he had to put words on the sight, he would say murder was written in her eyes.

“You have a pretty disturbing look on your face right now. Am I interrupting some sort of criminal master plan?” Was what came out, when he finally opened his mouth. Lana tensed at the sudden sound, but she quickly relaxed again. Turning her head slightly and meeting his eyes she said: “Oh great, my victime has arrived.”

When he meet her eyes, he was surprised to see that they were slightly red and her checks were puffed. It looked like she had been crying, but before he could ask she burst out laughing. He was confused at the sudden fit of laughter and put his hand on his neck to calm himself, getting reminded about his new haircut.

“And I thought it couldn’t get worse than the mullet.” She just said, her signature teasing spark finally returning to her eyes.

That was the biggest lie Lana had ever told. When she had calmed down enough to get a decent look at Keith, her mind went blank. Yeah, she had teased him about his stupid mullet from day one, but she had never expected that he would ever get it cut, and she was not prepared.  _ Give a girl a warning next time! _

She had known that a haircut could change a person’s appearance, but she didn’t think it could do  _ that _ . 

She knew Keith was attractive, had known it for a long time, but his hair had always stopped it at that. Attractive. But without the mullet, he was  _ hot _ . And she was having an internal crisis.

Because Keith was sitting right beside her, thigh pressed against hers, and his hair looked so  _ soft _ . She would kill, just to get the chance, to feel her fingers running through it. 

“Are you okay?” Keith asked her after a moment of silence. He had patiently watched her laugh at him. Which is why the question surprised her, she hadn’t given him any reason to think that she wasn’t fine.

“Yeah, why?”

The room fell silent again, as if Keith was trying to collect his thoughts before speaking again. With a chuckle he turned his attention to her again. And,  _ oh _ , how she wished he hadn’t. He was looking right through her, reading her like an open book.

“Your eyes were red and you are unusually quiet today.” 

Silence. Not helping her case at all.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Are you sure you want to hear about it? It isn’t that big of a deal…” Her voice died down. This wasn’t his problem, or responsibility, but somewhere deep inside her, she was just a little bit happy. It had been a long time since she had had a heart to heart talk with anyone. She knew, she could talk to Hunk but he had his own battles to fight, and she didn’t want to burden him. 

But when it came to Keith, she couldn’t possibly burden him more than she already were already.

“It’s just… hard. Being away from home,” she began, “I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye-” Her throat closed just thinking about her family. 

“They probably think I’m dead…” Even though she had told herself she wouldn’t cry, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

“Does it make me a bad person, wishing that I could just go home and leave the universe in the hands of someone else?” It was a rhetorical question but Keith still tried to answer.

“No-” 

“Someone worthy of being a paladin.” She cut him off. “I’m not fit for the spot. I’m just a girl from Cuba, a placeholder. I don’t belong on the team, and if it wasn’t clear before, this whole situation should be enough proof.”

Without warning she was held in a soft embrace by Keith. And against her better judgment, she just accepted the hug. Cried for a bit. But most of all, she just took comfort in the unnatural gesture.

The hug wasn’t suffocating. It was careful and assuring. It wasn't a hug that promised a better future, but it gave a gap in reality to let the frustrations out. 

“ _ ...thank you… _ ” her voice was low and he wouldn’t have heard her if they hadn’t been so close. “No problem,” he just mumbled back into her hair. 

They just sat there watching the sun set in silence. They had moved from the embrace to Lana leaning against Keith, her head resting against his shoulder, breathing slow and carefree. And before either of them knew, they were both asleep.

***

The next morning was hell. They had woken up in a mess of limps and blankets - Coran found them leaning against each other, but didn’t have the heart to wake them, so instead he just wrapped a blanket around them, leaving as quick as possible. And if falling asleep on the couch in the common room was painful, it was insufferable sleeping on the cold, hard ground.

Lana woke up, back aching, but still feeling weirdly content with where she was. Unaware of her surroundings she decided, that the rest of the world could wait five minutes more. In an attempt to change her position for the better, she snuggled into the hot embrace of her blanket (duvet? comforter? She had no idea, but it was warm and comfortable, and that was what was important). 

She was more happy than she had been in months, and well on her way to dreamland, when she was pulled rather sharply away from it again. 

The cause? 

Her blanket shifted, grunted and tightened its hold around her. And just like that, all the memories from the previous night came back. Her breakdown, the hug and now her cuddling him.

Deep down she knew that she should try to get out of his hold, but some - very persuading voice told her that five minutes couldn’t hurt. 

_ No, this is not right _ , she thought to herself, carefully wiggling her way out.  _ Keith had helped her enough, and she needed to get away, put some distance between them; the closeness was as welcome as it was unwanted.  _

Considering their sleeping positions - legs entangled, her hugging Keith’s chest, head buried under his head and his hand in her hair - it was surprisingly easy to get out of the sleeping boy’s grip. Everything was going great, or at least until she got completely free from his contact. 

The second their skin stopped touching, pain erupted from everywhere inside her. Everything hurt, her head, her whole body. It felt as if she was either going to burst or compress. Even though she tried her best, she couldn’t keep her whimpers silent enough, and ended up waking Keith.

And not just getting him to shift in his sleep, but him sitting up straighter than anything she had ever seen. He looked around eyes filled with panic but relaxing slightly seeing Lana sitting beside him. Or that was until he saw her pained expression. 

In a clutter of questions main focus on what happened, she managed to answer one and a half.

The first was ‘who died?’ and she had no idea what he thought had happened while he had been asleep. At her lack of answer he added another one. ‘Is it Shiro?’ 

That was where her brain finally caught up to her - but the pain was really distracting her.

“No one died. Have a little faith in us.” She said, winching at a sudden wave of pain and looking at a now more calm Keith.

“What’s wrong then?” He asked leaning back slightly. And then, as if Lana’s body hated her for some reason, everything started to  _ burn _ .

With a loud scream she curled into a ball on the ground, hands grasping her hair, legs, the ground, everything, in an attempt to get the pain to disappear again.

In the blink of an eye Keith was with her, sitting beside her, trying to figure out what to do with his hands. 

Her body was tingling and everything was spinning. And she  _ couldn’t breath. _ It was as if the air didn’t get to her lungs, no matter how many times she tried to inhale it. 

She was starting to panic - or had been for a few seconds now, but  _ details _ \- when she in a last attempt grabbed Keith’s hand… and just like that, the pain just vanished. Like dew before the sun. And then it hit them. The venom. Locking their eyes and giving eachother a confirming nod they both said a syncront, “Coran”, before rising to their feet hurrying out the room, hand in hand.

_ This is not good,  _ they both thought,  _ we should have at least a week more before it became this bad. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things starts getting complicated - and I start to lose the grip on the length of these chapters… Next up is the first sleepover, including braiding, compliments and silly pillowfights!


	7. What can you do other than denying it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran just can’t keep up with the two teenagers' love story and he doesn't want to. But sometimes an adult has to steep in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m never planning anything for my summer vacation anymore. The time has just slipped away from me and I have started at a continuation school so that is going to take pretty much all of my time until the next holiday.

To be honest, Coran had pretty much expected this to happen. 

First of all, the venom just had that effect on its victims, it made them more likely to feel deeper for their antidote. But Keith had always had a special place in Lana’s heart. But none of them could see it.

So when he opened his door to be met with two confused and mildly panicking teens asking him why the pain had come so early and painful, he knew the time had come. The time to lie as well as his mother had taught him. 

And to put it lightly, he was ecstatic. This might be the push they needed to finally discover their mutual feelings for each other. 

But this would also make things so many times more troublesome. 

Because another thing about the venom, was that it evolved along with the victim’s feelings. So even though Coran wished that they could finally accept their crush, he knew that it wouldn’t be the right way to do it. They needed to wait for the venom to leave Lanas system. He couldn’t control a pair of hormonal teenagers. And especially not two hormonal, inseparable, lovesick teenagers. Because they had urges he didn’t want to deal with until tha venom was in the past. 

So as the responsible adult, he was, he played dumb and hoped for the best. 

“What do you mean it has gotten worse?” He asked, not expecting the two teens to turn red at the harmless question. 

“Um- so you see- we um- we…” Lana started. 

_ Uuhhhh this sounds interesting _ , Coran thought to himself. It usually took pretty much to get the blue paladin flustered. Keith was another story. He stood still by her side, glancing awkwardly at everything else, completely avoiding Corans gaze. 

“Keith,” he said, finally catching the temperamental boy’s attention, “why don’t you start with telling your side of this…  _ situation _ .” 

The boy was silent for a couple of seconds but Coran gave him time to think. 

Keith opened his mouth a couple of times just to close it again and shared a questioning look with his fellow paladin before finally settling on an answer. 

“We were talking about some stuff last night and ended up falling asleep at the observatory… and when I woke up Lana was screaming and looked like she was in pain. I kinda panicked and assumed someone had died, and everything just got worse until she grabbed my hand. And then it all just stopped.”

Coran wanted to laugh. They were hopeless. 

“Can any of you remember what happened before you woke up?” Just because he had agreed with home self to stay neutral didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it just a little. 

And as expected Lana turned an even darker shade of red. It was always fun to see the humans change color like this. 

“Umm, I can’t remember anything else…” Keith answered oblivious to Lana’s embarrassment. “What about you?” Keith said as he turned his gaze towards the flustered girl beside him. 

“No… umm nothing.” She said looking down at her blue lion slippers. They usually help grounding her but today they just looked at her with a judging expression. 

Maybe she could go talk to Coran alone at a later moment. 

“I’m sorry to say this, but I think the venom is developing faster than expected. So we might have to speed up our plans.” 

Both teens looked confused at the older Altean. 

Lana was the fastest to speak up. “What does that exactly mean?” 

Before Coran could answer her question she quickly added, “am I dying.”

_ What is wrong with these kids, _ he thought to himself. 

“No one is dying. We just have to move you in together a week earlier, no biggie.”

***

It didn’t take long to move them in together. It was almost  _ too _ fast. 

Their own rooms were way too small to camp two teenagers and whatever crap they had gathered through their time in space. So they had moved into the master bedroom. Or whatever it was called. The point was: it only had one bed of course. Luckily it was a double bed, so it wouldn’t be cramped. 

But it felt too real to ignore. And that was almost worse than being cramped up in a single bed in a too small room. 

The feeling of being loved. The feeling of being wanted and accepted. 

Even though they easily could sleep on opposite sides of the bed, it wasn’t possible with the venom developing. They had to be in physical contact. 

The first night they had tried with just their feet touching, but after multiple times of waking up to a screaming Lana, they stopped. Lana just moved her feet too much in her sleep. 

Next solution was holding hands. But after they both woke up with a terrible back and shoulder ache they dropped that too. 

The cuddling was Shiro’s idea. Something about them being more comfortable and that it was scientifically proved that cuddling strengthens people’s bond to each other. 

It was stupid according to Lana, but Keith did it ‘cause it was  _ Shiro _ . 

_ Coward.  _

So there she was, pressed up against Keith’s chest, just like when it all had started a few days ago. And maybe it felt a little bit like dying, but she knew she wasn’t because her hard had never pounded as hard as it did right there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally nearing a point where I, myself, are getting some romantic experience. There is this guy in my new class, and he is perfect for me. We live close to each other, we have some of the same interests and he is just a really nice guy. And I think I'm flirting with him, and that he is flirting back. So maybe the romance is gonna be a little bit more realistic.
> 
> Next chapter is still in progress, but it shouldn’t be that long before it's done - less than 4 months.


End file.
